News Archive - October 2012

Employees arrested for UK work permit offences

Four employees have been arrested in the Worthing and Chichester area after investigations discovered they had been holding down jobs despite the fact that they do not have legitimate UK work permits.

UK Border Agency (UKBA) officers received intelligence regarding the Chilcha Indian Restaurant on Montague Street, Worthing, earlier this month, as well as further information regarding the China Royal Restaurant on Market Road, Chichester.

They headed to the businesses to check out the situation and found problems with the UK immigration statuses of two Bangladeshi men at Chilcha and two Chinese women at the China Royal.

At Chilcha, the Bangladeshis – who were aged 34 and 40 – were arrested after they were shown to have been working in breach of their UK visa conditions. Meanwhile, at the China Royal, a 21-year-old and the 24-year-old women were arrested for remaining in the country after the expiration of their visas. A 23-year-old Chinese man was also working at the China Royal – he was found to be a failed asylum seeker and has been placed on immigration bail during the investigation of his case.

Timothy Reichardt from the UKBA, commented on the cases: “We regularly carry out operations like this in Sussex, and where we find people who are in the UK illegally we will seek to remove them.

“Illegal working has a serious impact on communities, undermining legitimate businesses and taking jobs from those who are genuinely allowed to work. “

He added that more raids are being planned for the region in order to catch companies that are breaking the law. Mr Reichardt warned that while the immigration authorities are “happy to work with businesses to let them know what checks need to be done on staff, those who do break the law should know that we are out there looking for them and they will face heavy fines”.